My little Bichon, Boomer, is now a senior. I guess technically he's been a senior for a few years now. We just visited the vet for his annual checkup, and at age 14, he's doing remarkably well. Sure, he's slowed down quite a bit, but no more "wear and tear" than most dogs his age. In fact, considering he has had two back surgeries, the latest of which was less than a year ago, he's quite a little inspiration. You know, living with an older dog is full of life lessons. It's not that you can't learn these things from a younger dog. You can. But as the pace slows down, I believe there's more time to observe what we're supposed to learn. I've probably said much of this before in a different ...

The stories I'm about to share are not unusual, and that's one of the saddest parts. These same incidents happen every day all over the country to untold numbers of innocents. The only way I can begin to understand it is to admit that evil abounds in the world. People can be heartless. Thoughtless. Selfish. With the complexities of human nature, any of us has the capacity for unseemly behavior. But it's a matter of degree, and the people I'm talking about are at the far end of the spectrum.Last week, I went to the shelter to photograph the new arrivals for their adoption profiles. Beforehand, I walked a few dogs including Nile, a really cool dog with one blue eye and one brown eye. We took ...

As far as I had ever seen, he was just a big, goofy knucklehead. His name was Hoss--that should tell you something right there. He was 70 pounds of ambiguous shepherd/hound mix that still had an abundance of puppy energy contained in that 2-year-old frame. He was handsome, don't get me wrong. But every time I saw anyone with Hoss on a leash, they looked like a toddler learning to walk while their arm was being slowly torn from its socket. Telling him to slow down was no use, nor were small, corrective yanks on the leash. He didn't seem to notice. Needless to say, he was more of a handful than most people were willing to take on. When they told me at the shelter that I'd be taking ...